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The Syrian Tourism Ministry recently reported that one million tourists had visited Syria during the first five months of 2001, according to KsaToday daily.

Of these tourists, 756,063 were of Arab origin while 339,890 came from non-Arab nations. The Ministry noted that these figures reflected an 8.2 percent increase compared with the number of the incoming tourists during the corresponding period of the previous year.

Syria has been running a campaign in a bid to increase the number of incoming tourists by 25 percent annually, targeting four million tourists yearly by 2005, according to the Syrian Minister of Tourism Qasim Miqdad. Last year, more than three million tourists visited the country, representing a 12.5 percent increase compared with the previous year, 1999.

Revenues collected from tourism in 2000 were 42 percent higher than in 1999, amounting to $74.4 million. In 2000 Syria saw a sharp rise in the percentage of non-Arab tourists, with 30 percent more Europeans visiting as compared with 1999. ― (MENA Report)